I enjoyed Ann Waswo's take on the construction of memories of WW II in the U.S.
However, I would be curious to hear specualtion on what mechanisms were involved
in the "construction of public memory". More specifically, although I agree with
Prof. Waswo's analysis on the whole, I myself could not point immediately at
particular actors or agents who were decisively involved in the construction of
public memory. Was it the press, the military (on its own or through the press),
returning soldiers, the movie industry (which Prof. Waswo mentions as an
element), political leaders...?

I am currently trying to answer similar questions regarding Japan and Germany.
Specifically, I am examining the reconstruction of national identity by the
teachers' union in Japan and East and West Germany. Part of the motivation for
asking specific questions about teachers came from the sort of questions I ask
of Prof. Waswo above. However, in the U.S. it seems that teachers were not
nearly as well organized or as influential as a collective actor as they were in
Japan or in East Germany or even in West Germany.

Another part of the motivation for my research came from the curious reversal
that seems to occur in Japan and Germany regarding the public memory of WW II.
Whereas I have found that discussion in Japan (at least in publications of the
teachers' union) of militarism and WW II was surprisingly frank, the West German
sources are very quiet on this topic during the first decade after the war. Of
course, most people would agree that by the time you get to the 1970s and
certainly in the 80s and 90s, Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung (the discussion and
processing of the past) has been much more thorough in West Germany than in
Japan. East Germany plays a curious role of another path in that the East German
leadership disassociated itself immediately from the German role in WW II by
blaming National Socialism and expansionism on fascism and not on anything
particularly German.

Any thoughts on social actors in the construction of public memories or
specifically on the role of the teachers' unions in Japan and Germany would be
highly appreciated. A (slightly dated) proposal for my research can be found at
http://www.princeton.edu:80/~jdierkes/current_projects.html.

Julian B. Dierkes
Graduate Student
Sociology
Princeton University